Lower Alsace (northern

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

) was a landgraviate of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...

held ''ex officio'' by the Bishop of Strasbourg. Prior to is acquisition by the bishopric, it was held by the counts of Hüneburg. In 1174 Count Gottfried of Hüneburg was the landgrave when he got into a dispute with the Abbey of Neuburg near Hagenau. In the

late Middle Ages The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Ren ...

the unity of Lower Alsace was lost.

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label= Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label= Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the ...

became an

imperial city In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities (german: Freie und Reichsstädte), briefly worded free imperial city (', la, urbs imperialis libera), was used from the fifteenth century to denote a self-ruling city that ...

, owing allegiance to nobody save the emperor, and the great noble families gradually became extinct, their lands being inherited by families from across the Rhine. Lower Alsace thus had closer political connections with the rest of Germany than did

Upper Alsace Upper Alsace (southern Alsace) was a landgraviate of the Holy Roman Empire centred on Ensisheim and Landser, north of the County of Ferrette (Pfirt). The counts of Habsburg ruled the territory from the 1130s down to its cession to France in th ...

. After the bishop, the greatest landholder was the Count of Hanau Lichtenberg. These nobles held vast estates outside of Alsace. The lesser nobility, confined in their holdings to Lower Alsace, but being immediate vassals of the emperor, were collectively known as the "Immediate Nobles of Lower Alsace". On 14 April 1646, the imperial ambassador Trauttmansdorff, during negotiations to end the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of batt ...

, offered "Upper and Lower Alsace and the Sundgau, under the title of Landgraviate of Alsace" to the French. There was no such territory, since Alsace was at the time divided into several jurisdictions held by competing powers. The Archduke Ferdinand Charles held the landgraviate of Upper Alsace, while a relative held the ''Landvogtei'' (bailiwick) of Hagenau with a protectorate over the Décapole (a league of ten imperial cities).

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* * * * * {{Alsace topics History of Alsace Counties of the Holy Roman Empire Landgraves of the Holy Roman Empire